Ranchi Mayor Asha lakra, summoned by Jharkhand High Court in a public interest litigation on Tuesday, defended herself stoutly, telling the court that she will not clear any file against the norms.
lakra had been directed by a division bench of Chief Justice PK Mohanty and Justice Ananda Sen to be present physically in the court on Tuesday to explain the dispute inside Ranchi Municipal Corporation due to which several development projects remained held up.
In his counter affidavit filed by the Municipal Commissioner Prashant Kumar on Monday, he alleged that as many as 65 projects of RMC were held up as board meetings had not been called by the Mayor since December last.
“I did not hold up any project. They (officials) come to me in the last hour and ask me to sign the file without going through them….which is not possible. I am a literate person; how could I sign a file without studying it thoroughly,” maintained the Mayor. “If they cooperate with me in a proper way, I will dispose them of immediately without any delay,” she told the court.
“But I will not do anything against the norms, whether it comes from the Municipal Commissioner or anybody else. Procedure must be followed at any cost,” lakra told the Court.
“I wrote them several times after December 8 for holding the RMC board meeting, but they did not reply to it,” she said.
“They do not inform me about the procedures followed before tendering of any project. I will be blamed in future if anything goes wrong in the process,” said the Mayor. “There are several such instances which could be mentioned here in this regard,” she said.
“Being Chairperson of the procurement committee, I must be informed by the officials about the procedures followed by them in each and every project. These projects involve crores of rupees… I have to go though it thoroughly. They must support me,” the Mayor said.
When asked by the court about the number of projects held up in the RMC, lakra said that she did not have any idea about it as she was never told about how many projects were pending.
After hearing lakra patiently, the court gave one week’s time to all the parties for resolving the dispute and directed the Mayor, Municipal Commissioner, Additional Municipal Commissioner, Chief Engineer and the Health Officer to file a joint affidavit in this regard so that the people of Ranchi do not have to suffer any more.
“We do not want to interfere in this matter as it may have dire consequences on you,” said the court. “First you try to resolve the matter. If necessary, then we will interfere,” the court said. It, however, observed that the dispute in RMC will send a wrong message among the people which also did not sound good.
“Emergency matters like garbage, health, mosquito or drinking water must be sorted out immediately so that people do not have to suffer,” observed the court.
The dispute between the RMC Mayor and Municipal Commissioner had been brought to the notice of Court by the petitioner’s advocate during the hearing of a PIl filed by Deawan Indraneel Sinha on the issue of the mosquito menace in Ranchi.
Expressing its displeasure over lack of cleanliness in the City, the Court also asked the Mayor why it could not be maintained as was done during Global Investment Summit on February 16-17. “If not 100 per cent, 75 per cent could definitely be maintained,” the court said.
The mater has been fixed for next hearing on May 3 while the joint affidavit has to be filed on April 27.